Chan Heng Wah and Another v Peh Thiam Choh and Another

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judgment Date: 03 September 1985
• Date: 03 September 1985
• Docket Number: Suit No 1189 of 1982
• Court: High Court (Singapore)

Chan Heng Wah and another

Plaintiff

and

Peh Thiam Choh and another

Defendant

[1985] SGHC 39

F A Chua J

Suit No 1189 of 1982

High Court

Damages–Assessment–Claim for loss of earnings by estate–Quantification of claim–Method used to calculate deduction for living expenses

The deceased, a second year medical student in the University of Singapore, died in a car accident involving the first defendant. The defendants admitted liability. The first plaintiff, as administrator of the deceased's estate claimed, among other things, damages for loss of earnings during the years of her life that were lost as a result of the accident, or what is known as a “lost years” claim.

Held, allowing the claim:

(1) An estate is entitled to make a claim for “lost years” pursuant to s 8 of the Civil Law Act (Cap 30, 1970 Rev Ed) by virtue of the case of Gammell v Wilson [1982] AC 27 decided by the House of Lords based on an English provision which is in pari materia with our s 8: at [5].

(2) In quantifying a claim for lost years, the court has to consider what the deceased's real prospects might have been. Where the deceased did not have actual employment at the time of her death, the court has to determine her prospective net earnings: at [22].

(3) In determining the sum to deduct to account for living expenses, a proper method is to take a percentage rather than working on figures for each item with no evidence to substantiate such deductions: at [38].

Adsett v West [1983] QB 826; [1983] 2 All ER 985 (folld)

Ban Pet Hock v Ong Ah Ho [1965-1967] SLR (R) 457; [1965-1968] SLR 516 (folld)

Gammell v Wilson [1982] AC 27 (refd)

Harris v Empress Motors Ltd [1984] 1 WLR 212; [1983] 3 All ER 561 (folld)

Lai Chi Kay v Lee Kuo Shin [1981-1982] SLR (R) 71; [1980-1981] SLR 513 (distd)

Low Kok Tong v Teo Chan Pan [1981-1982] SLR (R) 643; [1982-1983] SLR 346 (refd)

White v London Transport Executive [1982] QB 489 (folld)

Civil Law Act (Cap 30,1970Rev Ed)s 8

Administration of Justice Act1982 (c 53) (UK)

Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934 (c 41) (UK)s 1

Leslie Chew and Veronica Lim (Lee & Lim) for the plaintiffs

Abdul Rashid bin Abdul Gani (Cooma, Lau & Loh & M Karthigesu) for the first defendant

Christopher Lau and Choo Wai Hong (Khattar Wong & Partners) for the second defendant.

F A Chua J

1 Miss Chan Sui Keng, a second year medical student in the University of Singapore, was travelling in a car EB 6061 P driven by her brother Chan Yew Weng (“the second defendant”) along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 6 in the direction of Marymount Road on 31 July 1980 at about 7.00am when at the junction of Ang Mo Kio Avenue 6 and Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5, a motor taxi driven by the first defendant along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5 in the direction of Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10 collided into the car EB 6061 P. Miss Chan Sui Keng (“the deceased”) was killed in the accident.

2 This accident has given rise to this claim by the deceased's father as administrator of the deceased's estate (“the first plaintiff”) for damages arising out of this fatal accident for what has become known nowadays as a “lost years” claim. The father (“the second plaintiff”) has also claimed special damages for the loss of the use of his car EB 6061 P.

3 The two defendants have admitted liability - 90%, in respect of the first defendant and 10% the second defendant. The parties have also agreed on the quantum of damages: (a) loss of expectation of life, $6,500; (b) funeral expenses, $3,000; and (c) loss of use of the car, $600.

4 The first plaintiff claims:

(a) $2,125,866 damages for the lost years based on the multiplicand of $106,293.30 and a multiplier of 20;

(b) loss of pension of $95,932.40; and

(c) loss of gratuity of $35,974.65,

making a total in damages of $2,257,773.

5 All that is left in this case is for me to decide the quantum of the claim by the estate for “lost years” which s 8 of our Civil Law Act entitles the estate to claim by virtue of the case of Gammell v Wilson [1982] AC 27 decided by the House of Lords based on s 1 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934 of England which section is in pari materia with our s 8 of the Civil Law Act. All but one of the Law Lords in that case recognised the injustice of the interpretation to be given to s 1 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934 and felt constrained to call for legislative intervention to reform the law in this regard.

6 Lord Diplock in Gammell's case ( [5]supra) at 62, in his opening speech said:

My Lords, I understand your Lordships to be at one in holding that both these appeals must be dismissed. I am of the same opinion - reluctantly, because I do not think that this outcome is either sensible or just.

7 In the course of his judgment he said at 65:

My Lords, if the only victims of fatal accidents were middle-aged married men in steady employment living their lives according to a well-settled pattern that would have been unlikely to change if they had lived on uninjured, the assessment of damages for loss of earnings during the lost years may not involve what can only be matters of purest speculation. But as the instant appeals demonstrate and so do other unreported cases which have been drawn to the attention of this House, in cases where there is no such settled pattern - and this must be so in a high proportion of cases of fatal injuries - the judge is faced with a task that is so purely one of guesswork that it is not susceptible of solution by the judicial process. Guesses by different judges are likely to differ widely - yet no one can say that one is right and another wrong.

8 He ended his judgment saying at 65:

Where Parliament has intervened by passing the Fatal Accidents Acts, the law relating to damages for death recoverable by dependants is sensible and just with the possible exception of the case of widows who have remarried or become engaged to do so by the time the action is heard. I join with your Lordships in thinking that it is too late for anything short of legislation to bring the like sense and justice to the law relating to damages for death recoverable by the estate of the deceased.

9 Lord Edmund-Davis said at 70:

My Lords, the assessment of compensation for the 'lost years' rests upon no special basis of its own and it proceeds on no peculiar principle. It may present unusual difficulties, but the task itself is the ordinary one of arriving at a fair figure to compensate the estate of the deceased for a loss of a particular kind sustained by him in his lifetime at the hands of the defendant.

10 He ended his judgment saying at 71:

On general principles, this House will interfere only where an assessment of damages is perverse or it appears from the amount awarded that it was arrived at on an incorrect principle. I take leave to doubt that I should have awarded the plaintiffs in Furness as high a sum as 15,547 for the 'lost years.' But here again I see no error in principle, and, while counselling moderation in assessing such claims so as to reflect the high degree of speculation inevitably involved, I am not prepared to hold that the award calls for adjustment.

My Lords, in the result I would dismiss the appeal in each of these cases.

11 Lord Fraser said at 71-72:

It is no doubt just and sensible that, where the death of the family breadwinner is caused by the negligence of some other person, that person should be liable to compensate the deceased's dependants for the injury which they have suffered from the death. The main element of injury will normally be loss of support. … But it seems to me difficult to justify a law whereby the deceased's estate, which may pass to persons or institutions in no way dependent upon...